While working on the summary I noticed some things about the scenic tour Kent & Vyxin took of Japan. When Vyxin realize they are going in the wrong direction they are driving north (according to the compass). From this we can infer that they did indeed get onto the road to Tokyo in Kurihama, but then missed the turn off east to Narita and instead continued north.

So in the episode we get to see when Vyxin realize they are going in the wrong direction and the next shot shows Kent saying that they will probably miss the flight. But the catch is that Vyxin realize her mistake at 09.22 and Kent says that they will probably miss their flight at 09.05 (you can see watches in both scenes, boy do I love HD:-). So the editors are screwing with us and rearranging scenes chronologically (not a big surprise).

We still don't know for sure if there's any NEL penalty this season. I think the odds are that K/V will get the 30 minute penalty for not being on the required flight, they won't have any "time saved" added to that penalty since they didn't save any time.I suspect they will be hit with a NEL penalty of some sort; if not that means WRP has abandoned the NEL penalty this season.

Well this is a TBC leg, just like Sydney. Jet and Cord were not penalized for checking in at the Sydney faux pit stop last, so I'm inclined think that this one works the same way and Kent and Vyxsin will not be penalized either. I think they might have just replaced NELs with TBC legs for this season to make it harder.

As was discussed during the first two episodes, these really cannot be called TBC legs; there have been instances in the past where TPTB had teams complete a leg, then within the same episode had teams start the next leg. The use of "TBC" now can't be used as a determinant of whether there is a leg, or an uberleg. The mandatory rest periods no longer have a standard length, and now, we can see that the length can be zero. With that, we have to look at the teams' arrival at the mat. If there is a greeter with Phil, then there is a leg; if there isn't and Phil tells a team to keep racing, then we've got a an uberleg.

(Some people call what I call an uberleg, a TBC leg. With the developments in this edition of the no rest period pit stop, I think I got it right in TAR 6 when I coined the "uberleg" as I've never adopted the "TBC" leg terminology.)

As to the NEL terminology, there were no NEL penalties the first four seasons, so I don't see a need to change the terminology. The only difference from those early seasons NELs is the no rest period pit stops.

If it helps any, when K/V were lost they were driving through the streets of Shinjuku; the first cap is the Nowa building next to Shinjuku station and the second cap is the Green Peas pachinko parlor nearby.

We still don't know for sure if there's any NEL penalty this season. I think the odds are that K/V will get the 30 minute penalty for not being on the required flight, they won't have any "time saved" added to that penalty since they didn't save any time.I suspect they will be hit with a NEL penalty of some sort; if not that means WRP has abandoned the NEL penalty this season.

Well this is a TBC leg, just like Sydney. Jet and Cord were not penalized for checking in at the Sydney faux pit stop last, so I'm inclined think that this one works the same way and Kent and Vyxsin will not be penalized either. I think they might have just replaced NELs with TBC legs for this season to make it harder.

As was discussed during the first two episodes, these really cannot be called TBC legs; there have been instances in the past where TPTB had teams complete a leg, then within the same episode had teams start the next leg. The use of "TBC" now can't be used as a determinant of whether there is a leg, or an uberleg. The mandatory rest periods no longer have a standard length, and now, we can see that the length can be zero. With that, we have to look at the teams' arrival at the mat. If there is a greeter with Phil, then there is a leg; if there isn't and Phil tells a team to keep racing, then we've got a an uberleg.

(Some people call what I call an uberleg, a TBC leg. With the developments in this edition of the no rest period pit stop, I think I got it right in TAR 6 when I coined the "uberleg" as I've never adopted the "TBC" leg terminology.)

As to the NEL terminology, there were no NEL penalties the first four seasons, so I don't see a need to change the terminology. The only difference from those early seasons NELs is the no rest period pit stops.

However, Phil has not said "This is a pre-determined Non-Elimination Leg" therefore, these shouldn't be called NELs.

I suggest we define NELs as legs where Phil explicitly tells teams they have been spared and that we retire the term überleg and replace it for KRLs (Keep Racing Legs)

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The story so far:In the beginning the Universe was created.This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move

I like the idea of a new name for a new variation on a theme...then we all know what we mean. Uberleg has worked for a long time...but now when I write NEL/TBC/uberleg...I always feel as though I need to explain what I mean.

But we have not seen the end of the traditional NEL either...

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RFF's Golden Rule:Have RESPECT for each other, regardless of opinion. This of course includes no flaming/insulting other users and/or their posts.

If it helps any, when K/V were lost they were driving through the streets of Shinjuku; the first cap is the Nowa building next to Shinjuku station and the second cap is the Green Peas pachinko parlor nearby.

Actually if people would have researched the flight options for that day, you probably would understand why teams were forced to fly on that 9:50am flight.

Not quite, Dr. Rox. If teams had been given that option, they would have discovered what I did, which is 3 flight combinations leaving not more than 55 minutes before the designated flight combination through Hong Kong and arriving at least one hour sooner into Kunming. More teams (probably all) would have made the same train as Ron/Christina did to Lijiang.

And I agree, co-ordinating shuttle buses and what not in Lijiang would not be something that could just be rescheduled. The mandatory flight arrangements must have been made weeks in advance, because as far as I know finding close to 40 seats on a flight last minute is quite hard the plan being that teams were in Lijiang on a specific day (28th Nov I believe) with the plan to manipulate the pitstop for Japan as necessary.

The scenes with Kent & Vyxsin are obviously from japan. They are driving on the right side of the road and also we know that in China they are going by train from Kunming to Lijiang and then they are going around the old town probably on foot.

As for them being safe, didn't the witnesses say that this leg is a NEL?

Yes, kikisak, spoilers indicate that Kynt and Vxysin will be NEL'ed in Lijang.If they are driving the wrong way in Japan, then they may board a later flight to China than anyone else.

Everyone is entitled to their own interpretation, but this seems obvious to me:1. Kent is driving a right-side steering wheel car. That is possible only in Japan, as several before me have pointed out.2. Although it may appear that Kent is driving in the right-hand lane and thus vulnerable to oncoming traffic on a 3 lane road, it is pretty obvious that the car ahead of him in that lane is going the same way as he is. That means it is one-direction travel on half of a 6 lane expressway.

It is also pretty obvious on episode 4 as telecast that there were fast-moving cars on the other side of the barrier to the right going the other direction. Also, in the Video Extras, Vyxsin made it clear that their compass was pointing west when they were driving the opposite way instead of to Narita. That means that the hypothesis made somewhere on this thread (I cannot find it) that they kept going north and failed to turn east is incorrect. They actually turned in the wrong direction (west instead of required east).

apskip..........did it ever occur to you that maybe, just maybe that Production got the teams to Kunming, EXACTLY when they wanted them there?

Dr. Rox,Thay may be so; it's impossible to know without inside information. However, the question was essentially "what would teams have done if they had not been contrained by World Race Production mandatory arrangements?" The possibility that such arrangements were deliberate for a good reason (assuring that all teams got there or having teams delayed a bit for better HD camera work on arrival in Lijiang) is not relevant to that question.

apskip..........did it ever occur to you that maybe, just maybe that Production got the teams to Kunming, EXACTLY when they wanted them there?

Dr. Rox,Thay may be so; it's impossible to know without inside information. However, the question was essentially "what would teams have done if they had not been contrained by World Race Production mandatory arrangements?" The possibility that such arrangements were deliberate for a good reason (assuring that all teams got there or having teams delayed a bit for better HD camera work on arrival in Lijiang) is not relevant to that question.

But the point is that the teams were constrained by production. From your own research, there were other earlier arrivals. Production obviously didnt want teams in Kunming before the arrival of the mandated flights. The fact that teams flew to Hong Kong was known to us here at RFF shortly after the fact. We had a spoiler from a person that was on the flight and interacted with teams on the flight.

At the time, I concluded that spoiler was Mel/Mike heading to ES. I wasnt till later on that RFF realized that Production was really manipulating transportation this race to maximize daylight filming for HD.

My reference to "other people" did not include you. It was to the people that didnt do any flight reseach. Those of us that do reseach flights, including you, saw the multiple flight connections that would have gotten teams to Kunming earlier in the day.